Welcome

The Winter Roundtable is the longest running continuing professional education program in the United States devoted solely to cultural issues in psychology and education. The Winter Roundtable will continue its tradition of bringing together scholars, practitioners, researchers, social change agents and students interested in the intersections between race, ethnicity, social class, gender, sexual orientation, and religious affiliation in psychology and education.

This year's theme, "#hoodiesup2015: breaking cycles of violence, building alliances, mobilizing resources", celebrates 32 years of accomplishments, while beholding the promise of fighting social injustice by leaders in the fields of cultural psychology and education.

We will emphasize research and interventions in community, school, and family settings, as well as individual development, regarding a wide range of topics, including language, literacy, access, wellness, cultural values, and experiences with oppression and discrimination.

The Winter Roundtable's legacy in honoring significant and promising research, practice, and training innovations in cultural psychology and education will include five highlighted conference features:

The presentation of the 12th Annual Social Justice Action AwardThe presentation of the 25th Annual Janet E. Helms Award for Mentoring and Scholarship in Psychology and EducationThe Student Scholarship ProgramPathways to PublicationPathways to Practice

COMMENTARY

BLACK LIFE MATTERS

Somewhere
I read that “our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that
matter”. Indeed, the prophetic words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. underscore
the difficulty of the hour in reconciling the trend highlighting the murder of
young Black males in city after city across this country. And while the
anger, frustration, rage, confusion, hurt, and pain percolate into constructive
and sometimes non-constructive behavioral manifestations, the tone and tenor of
the people’s outrage is being heard loud and clear all across this nation and
around this world. The unwavering chorus of our collective harmony speaks
with a resounding and uncompromising clarity, and whether the refrain is “hands
up-don’t shoot”, or ”I can’t breathe”, the common thread beneath each of those
sentiments is a cry to recognize the humanity of African descent people.
Without question or hesitation, we boldly declare that BLACK LIFE MATTERS!

It
must be difficult to embrace the ontological principle and sentiment of
“consubstantiation” (elements of the universe are of the same substance) Dr.
Wade Nobles introduced us to years ago, for if we as a society had, then the
differential treatment Black people and other citizens of color receive when
compared to their White counterparts wouldn’t exist. And yet study after study
reveals biases in the way Black people are perceived and treated in almost
every walk of life, despite claims to the contrary that the world really is
fair, the playing field really is level, and we somehow live in a post-racial society.
Indeed, Marimba Ani (1994) cautions us that “the maafa” is alive and well in
America.

Our
Brother and my friend Dr. Cornel West reminds us all that “we should
never allow misery to have the last word.” And so, we thank you for your voices
of outrage. But if the last word is a protest on the street or a demonstration
on the expressway or college campus, and not a push for and realization of
substantial social change in the way in which law enforcement and human decency
is practiced in this country, then our voices will not have had the impact they
need to have. If the last word is Black folks speaking out in anger about how
they “feel” when asked by a reporter looking to chronicle the sensationalism of
Black outrage, then our voices will not have had the impact that they should
have had. James Baldwin (1963) was clear that ”to be Black and relatively
conscious is to be in a constant state of rage almost all of the time.” So, why
is Black outrage new? We need, and all the way from Irvine, California, we are
calling for a NEW NARRATIVE!

For
if our Brothers and Sisters in communities of color hear us; if our allies in
the broader White community hear us; If Brothers and Sisters in the White
community who live in denial about the existence of racism and the realities of
biased policing really hear us; if police who wear the badge as a
commitment to really uphold the law and protect and serve their communities
really hear us; if politicians who pretend they “represent all of the people”
yet propose and pass legislation detrimental to the social uplift of Black
folks really hear us; then the next voices we hear should be those in the
larger White community responding to the queries about what allows them to
treat Black people the way they do and still retain their own humanity? What
allows a teacher to diminish the intellectual genius of a African American
child based on his/her skin color and treat him or her differentially in the
classroom? What allows media consultants or movie producers and directors to
dance around the issues of race without questions that penetrate deep into the
psyche of Whites that is so well defended? What allows predominantly White
juries to asperse the character of Black victims like Rodney King, Trayvon
Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice and then turn them into
beasts to rationalize why their lives were justifiably assaulted? What allows
police to denigrate the character of profiled suspects like Amadou
Diallo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Manuel Loggins, and those listed above reducing
them to super-human animals that need to be subdued with lethal force?
These are the questions I’d like our society to answer. These are the voices
your pleas should call out to hear. For little will change if we only analyze
the victim and not the victimizer. WE NEED A NEW NARRATIVE like the one we have
begun at UC Irvine.

The
justice we seek will not come if society’s gatekeepers only hear from those who
are most oppressed. Rather, justice will only come when the masses of people in
unified coalitions across demographic boundaries rise up and demand that
change must happen now! But we are hopeful. Not because we expect federal
government intervention in our affairs to render justice to these victims. That
trend is decades old. We are hopeful because we have seen change in our
lifetime. Dr. King was clear that: “the arc of the moral universe is
long, but it bends toward justice.” We would argue however that bending the arc
sufficiently toward real and not just illusionary justice will take the
collective efforts of all of humanity, and not just the oppressed of the world,
to usher in the change and justice we seek.

Thomas A. Parham, Ph.D

Distinguished Psychologist and Past
President

Association of Black Psychologists

Fellow

American Psychological Association

Past Chair of Education

100 Black Men of America

Dr. Joseph L. White

Distinguished Psychologist

Association of Black Psychologists

Professor Emeritus

University of California Irvine

Dr. Miville speaks out on the conference theme of the 2015 Roundtable:

"Like many of you, I have been deeply affected by several recent events indicating the ongoing and persistent impact of violence in its many forms. Being targeted and attacked simply for being a member of a group, as based on race (Ferguson), ethnicity (undocumented/unauthorized immigrants), gender (domestic violence, sexual assault), or sexual orientation (Tyler Clementi's foundation) has had a long history in our society. Many of the causes of these senseless acts of violence are linked with each other, and often are based on fear, hatred, maintenance of the status quo, unexamined positionalities, and sheer ignorance. Helping others to survive and thrive in the face of such horrific acts is what culturally competent psychology and counseling are all about...

The theme of the Roundtable focuses on the types of violence affecting diverse communities, including both causes as well as effective strategies for counteracting violence at individual/personal, family, community, and institutional/systemic levels. We hope you can join us for a compelling and inspiring conference!"